


I’ve got a raging [redacted] and the cause is the sound of your laughter

by hinatella



Series: yuuri!!! on fire (the superhero au) [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bad Flirting, Dirty Jokes, Humor, M/M, Rivalry, Swearing, Villains, like a gratuitous amount of swearing, terrible work ethics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinatella/pseuds/hinatella
Summary: Yuuri is trying to cope with the fact that he has to work with an ex-villain, and here’s a list of ways not to do that.





	I’ve got a raging [redacted] and the cause is the sound of your laughter

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of a series! so if you're reading this for the first time, you might wanna go back and read part one first, because this doesn't exactly stand alone.

In a single three-word sentence, Yuuri is _shook_.

To put it more eloquently, Yuuri doesn’t know how to handle this new change. It’s weird, and jarring, and beyond his wildest imaginations.

If a time traveller told Yuuri he’d have to live with seeing Flash Freeze, sans his mask and costume, waltzing around the organization like he _belongs_ here (and he technically _does_ ) Yuuri would be caught between the thin line of confusion and laughter, because that idea was just ridiculous.

Even now, with that reality literally staring him right in the face, he’s still acutely unsure of how to react.

Here is Flash Freeze, who no longer goes by Flash Freeze, sitting on the fluffy lounge couch like it’s the most natural thing in the world. That couch has stories, has seen the rears of a plethora of heroes, have been imprinted on by all sorts of people. But never, never, would Yuuri _dream_ it would have _Victor Nikiforov_ sitting there too.

Never would he expect to know the name behind the mask that’s plagued a third of his missions in the last two years.

Never in _hell_ would Yuuri get used to hearing Victor’s voice and not immediately bristle, because his brain is hardwired to act fast when he hears it.

It’s only been two days, but Yuuri thinks he’s finally starting to get the hang of his jumpiness when he hears Victor call out, “Yuuri!” in this excited voice that’s kind of wholesome and lets Yuuri forget for all of twenty seconds that he’s an ex-villain.

But then Victor ruins that mental image with a lame pick up line that _has_ to be from a list of “Online Pick-Up Lines That’s Sure to Win Their Heart! Guaranteed!” And Yuuri remembers that he wants none of this.

(His personal favorites—read: the worst ones—are:

_Was your father a thief? 'Cause someone stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes._

_I’d love to call you diamond, because you look flawless today._ (Yuuri had gotten exactly 4 hours of sleep that day.)

 _My admiration for you is like the water cycle; it never ends._ )

Everyone else seems keen on the idea of allowing Victor into their space, though they’re all a little guarded. Just in case.

Victor is on the couch, Chris to his left, Sara to his right, and Phichit on an arm rest. They’re hounding him with questions at the early hour of ten in the morning, and Yuuri sits at the round table near the cabinets with coffee in his hands while he listens to the whole thing.

“You’re living with Mr. Feltsman right now? I’m sure you’re giving him a hard time, hm?” Chris says. He’s resting one arm against the back of the couch, and there’s a lazy grin on his face.

“It makes sense considering the other villains know where I live. Yakov is really adamant about keeping a close eye on me.”

“Hold the phone,” Phichit cuts in, raising a hand. “They know you, but you don’t remember _them_?”

Victor nods his head and replies on a sigh, “They wiped parts of my memories when they learned what I was doing.”

“That’s _awfully_ convenient, isn’t it?” Sara questions.

“You can doubt me all you want, but I’m absolutely serious.” He shrugs, shakes his silver hair out of his eyes. “I nearly forgot who _I_ was, until I went home and it came back to me.”

Phichit furrows his eyebrows, regarding the ex-villain cooly. “They can do that? That’s good to know now, I guess.” Two days later, and Phichit still hasn’t given up his efforts in trying to breach Victor’s mind. Victor knows he’s Neuroseeker now, so he probably has his mind guards under ten times the amount of lock and chain, but that doesn’t stop Phichit from constantly trying. Yuuri knows that what Phichit is doing is a technical invasion of privacy, but he hasn’t said a thing about it.

“So, Victor, have you come up with a hero alias yet?” Sara asks, changing the subject.

He perks up like he’d been waiting all day for someone to ask. “Yes, actually! But I won’t reveal it until I get to go on missions.”

“Aww, boo. When is that, anyway?”

“That depends on _Yuuri_.”

Everyone turns to him, and Yuuri suddenly remembers with a start that he’s isn’t, in fact, invisible. Absently, he wonders why his real name on Victor’s lips always manage to sound incredibly indecent. It’s really unfair.

Yuuri blinks when he realizes they’re all expecting him to say something. “Sorry, what?”

“Are you gonna have Victor partner with us in any missions any right soon?” Phichit says.

He has honestly pushed that thought to the back of his mind. Yuuri isn’t sure he’s very comfortable with that idea yet. First, he has to mentally, physically, and emotionally prepare himself. Eat a tub of his favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Binge-watch a show. Complain to his sister Mari back home. Maybe even down a bit of alcohol beforehand, if he’s bold enough, but that wouldn’t bode well.

Instead of saying all of that, Yuuri simply answers, “I’d rather wait a bit longer first.”

Victor pouts, actually, literally, and he adorns this kicked puppy look that could rival that of Yuuri’s own puppy, and Yuuri aches for no reason at all. He hates this, he hates this _so_ much. Get him out of here.

(Yuuri chances a glance at Phichit to make sure he’s not probing his mind right now, and he sighs in relief.)

“We have to gauge how ready you’ll be before sending you out, anyway. Mr. Feltsman wants me to administer the Hero-in-Training test to you before you can even step foot out of the HOLE,” Yuuri explains.

Victor chokes on a drink Yuuri hadn’t realized he was holding, and Yuuri raises an eyebrow in mild concern.

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot the exit was called...that.”

“You better hop on that, Yuuri. The sooner you let Victor out into the world, the sooner he’ll be out of your hands,” Phichit says.

Yuuri nods his head, shrugging a shoulder. “You do have a point.”

“Why are you so quick to get rid of me?” Victor grouses. Then he grins, rests his cheek against his palm and his elbow on the back of the couch, and points his icy blue eyes right at Yuuri. “Wouldn't you want to cherish all of our time together?”

 _“No_ ,” Yuuri says, with a frown as deep as he is annoyed.

Victor pushes up against the couch so he’s sitting on the back of it, and he’s kicking his crossed ankles in the air, the perfect picture of innocence. Yuuri isn’t amused. “But, Cinderella, _I_ want to get to know—”

Yuuri is ready to aim one of the plastic grapes on the table’s centerpiece directly at Victor’s head, and his hand is reached out to take one, but the high-tech screen of the SUCC Information Bank pops up in front of him and Phichit with a mission alert.

SIB’s robotic voice repeats in a mantra, “Attention, bank robbery in progress. Attention—”

Yuuri touches the screen to dematerialize it and makes eye contact with Phichit. “Let’s go,” then to Victor, “Please don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“I’ll try not to,” Victor drawls with a wink. Yuuri _sighs_ with lamentation.

“Let’s go kick some _ass_.” Phichit hops from foot to foot excitedly, grabbing Yuuri’s wrist and leaving the lounge. 

✂ 

The first thing Yuuri and Phichit hears upon entering the bank is the last possible thing Yuuri wants to deal with right now.

Because there’s only one villain Yuuri hated to deal with more than Flash Freeze, and that villain’s loud, melodramatic rash of a voice was cackling manically in a way that the next city over could hear him.

"Mommy!" a small child cries, clutching his parent's leg with tiny arms. "It's...it's....!"

"Go on!" The villain laughs with glee. "Say my name!"

None of the threatened patrons do, but Yuuri whispers it under his breath with a roll of his eyes. _"Royal Mind Fuck."_

The villain turns with a start, and when he sees the two heroes at the door, he starts perspiring like Yuuri’s already turned up the heat.

"Y-you two!" Royal Mind Fuck stammers. He quickly snaps back to the bank teller, who is mindlessly and mechanically placing papers into a bag.

"Thank goodness," one of the civilians say, "It's Cinderos and Neuroseeker—we're saved!"

"I think the fuck not!" Royal MF cries. (The mother with the child covers her son's ears, shooting the villain a look full of distaste.) He frantically searches the crowd of people for anyone who'll lock eyes with him, and when he spot's the mother's gaze, he grins. "Got you."

"Neuroseeker," Yuuri says over his shoulder, as he holds out his hands, palms up, and struts over to Royal Mind Fuck with sure, audible steps. "Lead everyone out of here. I'll handle him."

Phichit whistles to grab everyone's attention and points them to the door. Everyone scurries away, all except for the mother and child. She's standing motionless, and the child is tugging on her skirt to get her attention. “Mommy?”

Yuuri swears silently. He'd gotten control of her mind.

Royal MF stands behind her and holds a knife severely close to her neck. "Don't get any closer! I swear I'll do it! _Stop crying, you're too loud_ ," he hisses at the sobbing child through clenched teeth.

Yuuri has stopped to gauge the situation. He's impatient, ticked off, and he wants to get this over with with as little incidents as possible. With a split second glance, Yuuri relays to Phichit to _cause a distraction_ , and in a beat, a binder goes flying at the villain's head.

"Ow?!"

Phichit immediately moves to grab the two people, but he doesn't leave without teasing, "I wouldn't wanna be you right now, Royal Mother Fucker."

“Stop calling me that!”

Yuuri is on the move again, quickly closing the distance between them, and his hands spark with the first kindlings of a flame.

Royal MF crowds to a corner, cowers, holds up his hands. "Wait wait wait! Okay!"

When he’s reached him, Yuuri shakes the fire out, forcefully grabs Royal MF from behind by the shoulder, and loops a pair of cuffs behind his hands. "How do you keep breaking out of jail?"

"Like I'd tell _you_. It's a trade secret."

"Is it also a trade secret to have one of your own infiltrating our organization?"  Yuuri says with a huff. He's exasperated, he knows, and the first rule in the superhero handbook is to stay calm. But he can't. He hasn't been able to for the past two days, and he won't be able to for several days to come, probably. While he has one of Victor’s known partner’s at his attention, Yuuri figures it can’t hurt to interrogate him.

Royal MF sneers. "Did he really join you? That fucking _traitor_. I hope he rots."

Yuuri's eyebrows knit together. "He seriously....?" Then he steps to his front when he's sure the handcuffs are on tight, and plants both hands at his shoulders. "Take him back. Please."

"What?" he responds, confused, blue eyes dark and calculating.

"He's driving me up the wall. I can hardly take it. Please," Yuuri repeats.

"Um, no. You think we were able to stand his dramatic ass too? Absolutely not. You can keep him."

Yuuri stares at Royal MF incredulously. He is big hair and dark eyeshadow and a costume made of purple sparkles. And he thinks Victor is dramatic? Yuuri could honestly laugh; the irony isn't lost on him. "Then," he starts, tightly his hold on the fabric of the villain's costume, "why did he really leave?"

Royal MF rolls sometimes in his head as he considers Yuuri's question. The hard lines of his face melts when he answers, "As much as I hate that Victor betrayed us, I understand him. I'd chase after someone I love too." He stares off in space as though reminiscing about some old period in time.

Yuuri gawks at him, dumbfounded. "Excuse me?"

He snorts. "For SUCC's top hero, you aren't very bright, are you?"

" _What_ are you talking ab—"

"Cinderos!" Phichit shouts, bursting through the doors.

Yuuri doesn't have time to react before he's pushed to the floor and held down by some invisible force.

 _Invisible_.

He should've _known_ this was too easy.

"Ha! This won't be the last time you get thwarted by Royal Mind Fuck, Cinderos! Get used to this! Now that Flash Freeze is dead, _I'll_ be this country's most fearsome—!

"Shut the hell up and let's _go_ ," a disembodied voice harshly cut him off. He— _they_ —disappear in a void of shadows.

" _Goddammit_ ," Yuuri curses, thumping a curled fist on the ground.

Phichit runs to his side to help him up. "I saw the doors creak open by themselves and thought it was Scarlet Mask, but I didn't get to warn you in time. I'm sorry."

"No, no," he dismisses, running a hand through his disheveled, slicked back hair. "It's my fault. I was questioning him and he _said things_ and I completely lost my composure." _What a dumb, childish move_ , he berates himself. Yuuri hasn't made a mistake like this in a while, and it'll only add to the pot of Things To Be Upset About.

"It's alright, Cinderos," Phichit pats his back. "Mistakes happen. The important thing is that no one was hurt."

Yuuri nods with a reluctant breath of defeat. Phichit is right. 

✂

A silver lining, just a small, shiny sliver in this seemingly perpetual sea of gray is what Yuuri needs right now. But the more harder he looks, the more he’s met with dark, ugly, monochromatic gray.

God.

When did he become a teenager in his emo phase?

He walks back into the building with Phichit in tow, with slumped shoulders and a sullen mood to match, and he kind of wants to cry.

“Yuuri,” Phichit calls, pulling him out of his so-emo-Yuri P.-could-probably-cringe thoughts. “What did Royal Mouth Fish say?”

“Hm?”

“You said, ‘ _and he said things’_ ,” Phichit recounts. “What things? Was it bad? If he hurt your feelings I won’t hesitate to find him and beat him up for you.”

Yuuri offers a sad smile at Phichit’s lame attempt to make him feel better, then he looks down at the ground again to recall their early conversation. “He said...he kept calling Victor a traitor. And he didn’t seem at all happy about the fact that Victor’s here with us now. And,” he bites his lips to stall for time before he says the next part. “Victor decided to become a hero to chase after someone he loves?” His eyes glance up to meet Phichit’s, now. “I have no clue what he means by that.”

“I wonder…” Phichit hums, taps a pensive finger again his bottom lip. “Is it you?”

Yuuri _sputters_. “What? No?”

“You can’t be so sure...he flirts with you constantly.”

“I doubt any of that means anything!” Yuuri says with crossed arms and a burn to his ears. “He says all of that to mess with me, I know it. He does... _did_ it on missions all the time to try and distract me.” _And it work the first few times, too…_ He doesn’t tell Phichit that though, because Phichit already knows. They’ve been unofficial partners for years now. “Anyway, someone he loves might just mean Mr. Feltsman or Yuri P. since he knows them apparently…”

Phichit hums again, pursing his lips and tapping a finger against his cheek like he’s trying to piece something together. “Did he say anything else?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “Nothing that stands out. He just seemed very serious about the fact that Victor turned on them, and it’s still kind of hard to swallow that he did in the first place. I’m not very sure what to believe right now.”

“Yeah, me neither. It all seems too sudden. Something _has_ to be up.”

They enter the lounge, then, and are greeted with the sight of Victor laughing; one hand clutches his stomach and the other is thrown over his mouth to keep the sound at bay, but it honestly does nothing because the laughter is spilling into the room with abandon. Chris is on the couch next to him, resting his temple on his palm and looking awfully too pleased with himself.

Victor doesn’t stop laughing until he hears the sound of Yuuri and Phichit pulling the chairs at the table back to sit down. And he suddenly looks concerned. “What happened?”

Yuuri forlornly places his head down on the table’s surface and responds with a distraught mumble. Phichit translates, “The villains got away.”

“Ah…”

A hand gently pats Yuuri’s head. Phichit tells him _there, there_.

From the couch, Yuuri hears Chris whispers to Victor, “He really hates to lose and he _really_ doesn’t take failure very well.” And it’s true; the last time Yuuri had an awful failing streak, he’d taken to eating sweets as comfort. The carpet of his bedroom still holds that evidence in the form of stubborn chocolate stains.

Yuuri wants to go home already, but it’s only noon. He wonders if there’s anything in his fridge right now that’ll help cheer him up. Maybe he’ll run to the convenience store before it closes…

Just then, the chair to his right scrapes along the linoleum and a heavy body plops down to it. Yuuri thinks it’s Chris, maybe. Or perhaps someone new has come into the lounge.

But no. Victor’s voice is close to his ear, _too close_ , when he says “Hey, _Yuu_ ri.”

Yuuri does _not_ squeal. That would be embarrassing. He does, however, jump in his seat and snaps his head so fast it causes whiplash. “Ah?!”

“Guess what I found out!” Victor says excitedly.

“What?” Yuuri humors him, blinking and perplexed.

“Chris’s hero alias! Why did no one tell me!”

Yuuri closes his eyes, fights off the secondhand embarrassment he feels rising like a tidal wave. “Oh...no…”

“ _Hard-on!”_

“ _Ughhhh_ ,” he and Phichit painfully groan in sync.

“Because his body turns into whatever metal he touches! Haha, I get it! How clever!”

“Please stop. Don’t encourage it. It’s awful.”

“It’s perfect,” Chris defends from across the room.

“It is!” Victor encourages.

“You’re _both_ wrong,” Phichit says. “It’s the worst hero name. Like, Royal Middle Finger level bad.”

Chris places a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “I’m offended. At the very least, it’s the most memorable name of everyone in this organization.”

“I guess you have a point…”

No one says anything after that, so Yuuri slinks his head back on the table. He’s facing Victor instead of the wooden surface this time, and his thoughts wander back to the conversation with Royal MF. Someone he loves? A traitor? And what did he meant by not very bright? Yuuri doesn’t like to take the things villain’s say to heart, but he can’t shake the clinging feeling that there’s something he’s just not getting. He regards the ex-villain with unfocused eyes, dismisses his thoughts because he can’t make sense of any of it, and he _absolutely_ can’t make sense of Victor.

He especially doesn’t make sense of the fact that Victor has grabbed Chris from the couch, and he’s whispering something in the other man’s ear. Chris glance at Yuuri, then back to Victor, and nods.

“Yuuri, look,” Victor calls, and when Yuuri does, he sees that Victor is holding an angry Chris loosely by the neck.

“What…?”

“I’ve got a _raging hard-on.”_

Yuuri makes a noise? He’s not sure what comes out of his mouth at first, but he’ll make everyone _swear_ to never mention it again later. But right now, Yuuri has both hands over his mouth to keep from laughing too hard. He’s not sure what does it. Maybe it’s the _awful_ joke, or maybe it’s Victor’s ridiculous face when he says it, full of all this radiance and that big, silly, heart-shaped smile. Maybe it’s because Phichit’s clear and bubbly giggles are contagious. Maybe it’s a combination of all three.

Either way, Yuuri finds that, as his laughter dies down and he wipes a stray tear from the corner of his ear, he really needed this one silver lining in the fast-approaching sea of grey.

Yuuri glances at Victor, expecting to see a self-satisfied smirk. But what he finds on his face instead is a hard to read-look; his full attention is on Yuuri, his arm around Chris’s neck has lost it’s hold, and his eyes sweep across Yuuri’s face like there’s treasure there to find. Yuuri feels self-conscious all of a sudden, so he sits up straight, crosses his arms, and looks at the opposite wall.

“That,” he clears his throat, “that wasn’t funny,” he says, like he hadn’t just recovered from a three-minute laughing fit.

“I got you to laugh though,” Victor responds, and it doesn’t sound smug in the slightest.

Yuuri chances a peek at him, sees this really dreamy look that’s new and unrecognizable and it leaves Yuuri feeling _something_ he doesn’t understand.

From his left, he hears Phichit snickering. Yuuri snaps his head towards him and looks at him questioningly. “What?”

“You and Victor actually have something in common, I think.”

“Huh?”

Phichit says under his breath so only Yuuri hears, “I can hear both of your thoughts _clear as day_.”

Yuuri can’t bring himself to feel flustered about that; he’s just confused. He wants to ask what Victor is thinking, until it dawns on him that Phichit _heard Victor’s thoughts_.

 _Wait_ , he thinks out loud.

Phichit looks all too pleased with himself.

_But what does that mean._

Phichit shrugs like he doesn’t know. But his smile is a contradiction; he definitely knows.

_What did he think?_

Phichit places a finger against his lips, sworn to some imaginary secrecy.

“Phi _chit_.”

“What just happened?” Victor asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“They do that a lot,” Chris explains. 

✂

And so it goes.

Today marks day four of Victor’s arrival, and Yuuri is starting to get a handle of it (he hopes).

His grips on reality is tight and sure when he walks into the lounge that morning, fresh faced and rest welled for once.

His grip loosens just a little when he stops at the door and looks down at the ground and spots a trail of liquid on the floor. He follows that trail with his eyes, loses grip on reality completely—feels the fabrics slide to the floor—when he spots Victor, Chris, and Sara in the middle of the lounge. They’re soaking in what looks like a makeshift pool, but the pool walls are made of ice and the water is steaming.

“What,” Yuuri says in complete disbelief. “The hell.”

“Ayy, Yuuri!” Sara calls, holding a martini glass out to him. “Look! Victor made us a pool!”

“Come on in, Yuuri, the water’s warm!” Chris says; he’s holding a glass too.

“You look like you could use it; I can see the dark circles under your eyes from here,” Victor says.

“I—You guys… _what?_ It’s nine in the morning!”

“And there’s no crime alerts! Hop in, Cinderella, don’t be a spoil sport!”

Yuuri immediately turns and leave out of the door the way he came.

It was kind of naïve of him to think that he’d gotten a read on what to expect from Victor, that he’d be able to stand having the other around so soon, because the man is bonafide enigma, and he does things Yuuri is starting to think he’ll never understand, and he’s odd in this hard to decipher way, and he _won’t stop calling him Cinderella and he makes random ice baths in the middle of the lounge at_ work _and he’d probably scale a castle naked if it were to cause Yuuri one more thing to lose his head over_ —  

Yuuri resolves to suck it up, _firmly grasp_ this reality in his hands again, because Mr. Feltsman tasked him with this impossible, inescapable job of transforming Victor into a full-blown hero within the next few weeks, and Yuuri is _nothing_ if not determined to do just that. But...

Tomorrow.

He’ll begin tomorrow.

Today, he’ll sit in the training room, because the lounge is taken, and he’ll mentally prep his mind for tomorrow.

✦

**Author's Note:**

> SO i was gonna wait until later to write this but it was national superhero day two days ago and i got the sudden motivation to finish this, and lemme tell y'all i'm dying of firsthand embarrassment. like, i was too much of a wimp to put hardon in the actual title. i'm sorry mother you didn't raise me to be this way yet Here I Am.
> 
> and can we talk about the movie announcement and the yuri on stage shenanigans because?? i'm still screaming?!? (props to anyone who catches the little reference i slipped into the story!!)
> 
> thank you to qq (@semi8ta) for beta reading and catch me on twitter (@hinatella) to yell about these ridiculous drunken gays


End file.
